Exclusive: Lee Zeldin Details 100 Environmental Actions EPA Took to ‘Power the American Comeback’ Under Trump
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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin detailed 100 environmental actions the agency took to “power the American comeback” 100 days into President Donald Trump’s second term in office.
“The Trump Administration’s first one hundred days have been historic. The American public made themselves heard last November, and we are delivering on this mandate. Promises made, promises kept. At EPA, we are doing our part to Power the Great American Comeback. To mark this momentous day, we are proudly highlighting 100 environmental actions we have taken since January 20th to protect human health and the environment,” Zeldin said in a video post, the prepared remarks of which were obtained by Breitbart News ahead of its release.
The EPA chief touted 100 significant environmental actions the agency took to fulfill what the administrator has long believed as the “core mission” of the agency. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, established the agency in 1970, giving the agency two missions: promoting clear air and water as well as reducing pollution from waste disposal and other hazards. Zeldin has said that the agency has refocused on the main mission of ensuring clean air and water instead of pushing onerous regulations in furtherance of the “climate change religion.”
Zeldin’s actions to cut regulations while protecting the environment are no small task.
In a statement, Taylor Rogers, an assistant press secretary for the Trump White House, said that the Trump administration and Zeldin have “taken monumental steps to quickly remove toxins from our water and environment, provide clean land for Americans, and use common-sense policies to Power the Great American Comeback.”
“Here are a few top highlights: To protect our nation’s waters, we updated water quality standards for 38 miles of the Delaware River to protect critical fish species and keep the river clean. We approved a plan to further restore and protect the Long Island Sound over the next decade. We also developed a method to detect 40 different PFAS in surface water, ground water and wastewater,” Zeldin remarked.
He continued, “Our team completed one of three in-water cleanups at the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site and revised the 2025 Idaho Water Quality Performance Partnership with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. To ensure clean air for all Americans, we demanded answers from an unregulated geoengineering start-up, Make Sunsets, that has been launching sulfur dioxide into the air to receive ‘cooling credits.'”
“We approved 25 State Implementation Plans, 16 of which were backlogged from the previous Administration, so that environmental requirements go into effect faster, and we addressed air quality at the border with air filters and monitoring. To provide clean land for Americans, we have fully cleared, or cleared a portion of, four Superfund sites to date,” he said.
The EPA administrator in March he said that he would move to clear the hundreds of backlogged cases to clear air, saying that the Biden administration has ignored these cleanup plans due to its fixation on “ideological pursuits.”
Zeldin noted, “We reduced by two years the excavation timeline of West Lake Landfill, a Superfund site in St. Louis, Missouri, where residents have been getting sick from nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project. We also ramped up efforts to end decades of raw sewage flowing into our country from Tijuana, Mexico.”
He added, “We have approved WIFIA loans across the U.S. to provide safe, reliable drinking water to communities; tested Tribal drinking water for PFAS across various regions to assess and manage water quality; and announced an expeditious review of new science on fluoride. We completed our largest wildfire response in agency history in Los Angeles, California, clearing 13,000 properties of hazardous materials in just 28 days. We also completed our FEMA mission assignments in Western Northern Carolina after Hurricane Helene and Kentucky following flooding.”
Here are the 100 environmental actions the EPA has taken within Trump’s first 100 days in office:
1. Issued immediate action items for Mexico to permanently end the Tijuana River sewage crisis.
2. Responded quickly to a citizen complaint about discharges into New York’s Hutchinson River; inspected and ordered corrective action.
3. Developed a Clean Water Act permit for hotels, condominiums, and apartment complexes to protect water quality in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
4. Finalized Arkansas 2022 Section 303(d) list assessing statewide water quality.
5. Approved Kansas Triennial Water Quality Standards Package.
6. Approved Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) plan in South Dakota to protect Big Sioux River quality from E. coli.
7. Announced plans to finalize outdated clean water standards for 38 miles of the Delaware River.
8. Approved removal of the Drinking Water Beneficial Use Impairment in Wisconsin’s Green Bay and Fox River Area of Concern.
9. Advanced Navajo Nation’s first in the country water permitting (“Treatment as a State”) authority.
10. Completed Phase 1 hazardous materials clean up after the catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires. EPA cleared 13,612 residential properties and 305 commercial properties, and removed 645 electric and hybrid vehicles and 420 energy storage systems in under 30 days.
11. Supported redevelopment at 21 Superfund sites across 13 states.
12. Completed a contaminated site cleanup in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, and Stratford, Connecticut.
13. Oversaw U.S. Navy’s time-critical removal of 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil at the Naval Education Training Center Superfund Site in Newport, Rhode Island.
14. Cleared all or a portion of 4 sites from the Superfund National Priorities List.
15. Cut two years from the cleanup timeline at West Lake Landfill, a Superfund site in St. Louis, Missouri.
16. Completed 55 property cleanups at Region 8 Brownfields. This is 31% of the national goal and 131% of Region 8’s Fiscal Year 2025 goal.
17. Completed laboratory work required for selecting a remedy at Lower Darby Creek Area Superfund Site in Pennsylvania. EPA collected 1500 sediment and water samples.
18. Responded to a mercury incident in Fremont, Ohio; safely removed and disposed of a 60-pound overpack and 15-pound bucket containing jars of elemental mercury and mercury containing devices.
19. Provided air monitoring support at the Chicago Magnesium Casting Co. after a large magnesium fire.
20. Completed Emergency Removal Action at the Marion Ohio Mercury Spill site in Ohio.
21. Oversaw Navy cleanup operations at Red Hill Fuel Facility in Hawaii, including removal of all sludge and pressure washing at two 12.5 million-gallon tanks.
22. Developed a method to detect 40 PFAS compounds in water sources.
23. Finalized eight Water Quality Standard Actions for Region 6 states.
24. Completed a second round of PFAS sampling at Region 7 Tribal Drinking Water Systems.
25. Provided interim PFAS lab certification for Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC).
26. Signed an agreement to connect Joint Base Lewis-McChord residences to municipal water system if PFAS exceeds standards.
27. Started Final Remedial Actions for Jackson Ceramix Superfund in Falls Creek Borough, Pennsylvania, with construction to begin in the Spring of 2025.
28. Provided training to help New Mexico administer the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a permit program established by EPA under the Clean Water Act to regulate water pollution by controlling point sources that discharge pollutants into U.S. waters.
29. Coordinated PFAS drinking water well sampling around Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
30. Utilized EPA lab Method 522 to test tribal drinking water systems for PFAS; performed 62 analyses.
31. Completed lead testing assistance (3T’s Protocol) for Puerto Rico schools and childcare facilities.
32. Reviewed 29 public water systems that had lead action level exceedance notifications in Region 4.
33. Completed 25 State Implementation Plans allowing environmental requirements to go into effect faster, 16 of which were backlogged from the previous Administration.
34. Finalized air quality rulemaking in the Washington D.C. Area ensuring ozone compliance.
35. Conducted ambient air monitoring technical system audits (TSAs) across Region 9.
36. Upgraded the RadNet monitoring station in Edison, New Jersey, to detect airborne radioactivity.
37. Awarded $165,000 to San Diego Air Pollution Control District for air filters and $1.26M for hydrogen sulfide monitoring to address air quality at the border and concerns with sulfur odors from Tijuana River sewage.
38. Promoted clean air quality compliance for new chip manufacturing projects in Phoenix, Arizona.
39. 27 Brownfields sites were made Ready for Anticipated Use, boosting property values and economic opportunities in Hartshorne, Oklahoma, Minden, Louisiana, West Memphis, Arkansas, and more.
40. Completed 107 assessments of Brownfield properties in Region 7, which is 82% of their Fiscal Year 2025 goal.
41. Achieved 21 contaminated Brownfield redevelopment successes in Region 9.
42. Held a Superfund Job Training at Missouri’s Ozark Correctional Center.
43. Completed review of 81 New Chemicals to ensure they are safe for human health and the environment.
44. Conducted a safety review of 14 pesticides to set tolerances to support a safe and reliable food supply.
45. Approved 48 pesticides to provide growers with necessary tools while ensuring appropriate restrictions were imposed to protect human health, the environment, and endangered species.
46. Proposed 35 significant new use rules (SNURs) for chemical oversight to ensure chemicals do not pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.
47. Led a Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Week-In-Residence Enforcement Training event for newly hired state inspectors to equip new inspectors with the knowledge necessary to uphold consistent inspection standards.
48. Blocked illegal pesticide imports totaling over 200,000 pounds across multiple regions.
49. Announced approval of Texas’s clean-air plan to address vehicle emissions and improve air quality in the San Antonio area.
50. Issued amended PCB risk-based disposal approvals to expedite repairs at public schools.
51. Led a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) State Authorization Conference to strengthen the hazardous waste program across all states.
52. Sent mobile drinking water lab to flood-impacted Eastern Kentucky.
53. Cleared more than 1,700 orphan containers of oil, propane, and other hazardous materials from land and waterways around the French Broad River after Hurricane Helene.
54. Tested over 1,500 private wells in North Carolina’s Buncombe and Watauga counties.
55. Assisted in restoring drinking water service to 150,000 people in North Carolina.
56. Concluded 297 enforcement cases reducing 15 million pounds of pollution.
57. Superfund enforcement secured $296 million worth of cleanups addressing more than 700,000 cubic yards of contamination.
58. Completed cleanup at Metals Refining Co. hazardous waste site in Indiana after discovering thirty-two, 55-gallon drums most of which were damaged and some leaking and an additional 200 to 300 miscellaneous containers of hazardous waste.
59. Removed approximately 10,000 tons of soil and debris contaminated with asbestos containing material from an unsecured 10-acre property in Indiana.
60. Collaborated to replace lead-contaminated soil at Atlanta’s Lindsay Street Park.
61. Analyzed children’s blood lead data to improve South Dakota lead prevention efforts.
62. Supported tribal waste management programs with multiple trainings to address dangerous materials like refrigerants, mercury switches, PCBs, and petroleum components.
63. Conducted 6,000 1-on-1 engagements with communities impacted by fires.
64. Held 104 public meetings or community events for fire response updates.
65. Provided training, guidance, and support to monitor and cleanup Underground Storage Tanks on Navajo Nation lands.
66. Started cleanup of radium-contaminated soil at the Silbert Watch Co. Superfund Site in Elgin, Illinois.
67. Developed EPA Method TO-15 to analyze 65 toxic Volatile Organic Compounds in indoor and outdoor air in support of Superfund and Clean Air Act.
68. Supported Los Alamos National Lab in transporting hazardous tritium containers for cleanup.
69. Conducted lead contamination studies at the Bunker Hill Superfund site.
70. Completed the review of the Houston area Ozone Exceptional that allows the state to proceed with their Air Program planning and implementation.
71. Worked with U.S. Customs to stop illegal pesticide imports at multiple ports.
72. Blocked over 56,000 pounds of unregistered pesticide products from entering through Region 4 ports.
73. Provided technical assistance support to communities at 31 Superfund sites across the country.
74. Cleanup of the HPI Chemical Products in Missouri, where thousands of containers of pesticide and herbicide containing hazardous substances, pollutants, and contaminants were housed.
75. Began a Remedial Investigation of the Historic Potteries site in Trenton, New Jersey.
76. Completed 7 property cleanups in Brownfields in the First 100 Days in Region 7.
77. Approved updated Comprehensive Conservation & Management plan for the Long Island Sound Partnership, to further restore and protect the Sound.
78. Initiated sediment removal projects at the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site removing approximately 13,700 cubic yards of contaminated sediment.
79. Oversaw cleanups at tribal and local jurisdictions under CERCLA and Clean Water Act.
80. Supported redevelopment at the Mississippi Phosphate Superfund site with a new treatment plant.
81. Completed analysis for wood treating contaminants at 181 residential properties around the Union Pacific Railroad Superfund site in Houston, Texas, with seventy four percent found to be safe for use.
82. Managed post-disaster hazardous materials spills in Ohio and North Carolina.
83. Inspected and mitigated vapor intrusion impacting Los Angeles from a former Superfund site.
84. Obtained court settlement for cleanup work at the San Fernando Valley Superfund Site located in North Hollywood-Burbank to restore a critical drinking water supply for the city of Los Angeles.
85. Responded to hydraulic oil spill into a creek in Whitehouse, Ohio.
86. Supported voluntary cleanups under consent decrees.
87. Began a removal action in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, to excavate and dispose of contaminated soil at three residential properties as part of a larger ongoing cleanup effort.
88. Approved eight plans for cleanup and disposal of toxic Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) materials to facilitate reuse and economic development across properties in New England.
89. Finalized Native Green Grow Air Permit for large greenhouse facility in North Dakota, providing the Tribe with food security.
90. Advanced Native American environmental oversight efforts.
91. Granted a Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan to Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, for drinking water infrastructure to over 20% of Utah’s population while creating local jobs to support the projects.
92. Supported grant programs to monitor and clean up abandoned USTs.
93. Provided federal funds to conduct Highway 24 lead and arsenic clean up in Colorado.
94. Helped prevent spread of hazardous materials from warehouse fires including sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, sodium hypochlorite, potassium cyanide, sodium cyanide, and lead.
95. Collaborated with fire rescue teams in North Carolina to retrieve containers from flooded rivers.
96. Provided technical guidance to local water operators, supporting efforts to restore and maintain drinking water systems and other essential services during Hurricane Helene Recovery efforts.
97. Completed all residential soil and indoor dust cleanup at the Colorado Smelter Superfund site.
98. Completed the 5-Year Review for Puerto Rico’s Corozal Superfund Site, paving the way for its deletion from the CERCLA Superfund National Priority List.
99. Submitted a demand for information to a start-up company called “Make Sunsets,” which is launching balloons filled with sulfur dioxide (SO2) seeking to geoengineer the planet and generate “cooling” credits to sell.
100. Announced major actions to combat PFAS contamination.
Zeldin concluded in his message about Trump’s first 100 days in office: “We completed our largest wildfire response in agency history in Los Angeles, California, clearing 13,000 properties of hazardous materials in just 28 days. We also completed our FEMA mission assignments in Western Northern Carolina after Hurricane Helene and Kentucky following flooding. These are just a fraction of the environmental actions we have taken in the first 100 days. Our team at EPA is honored and motivated to fight for you and deliver results. The golden age of America is upon us, and we will not slow down.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
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